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This patch is absolutely great.

Even though I am a real purist, I still wish Dragon Quest was less of a grindfest. After all, even the game authors realized it, therefore they increased (almost doubled) enemy experience and gold in all subsequent ports.

Luckily, this patch is compatible with the Doubled patch by Psyklax, but then it will not be accepted by every emulator (in my experience: FCEUX will run it, but JNES will not).

Since the first international release in 1989 all the way to its modern ports, DQ1 has suffered a strange quirk in translation where every bit of dialogue is rendered in some sort of medieval fantasy gamebook-speak. Meanwhile in Japanese, the text is written normally and sensibly. Where the original JP lets you easily digest all the story information and quest hints, the official translations throw on unnecessary "flavour" that's annoying at best, confusing at worst. This is without mentioning additional liberties that were taken with the script, such as censorship.

So, that's where this project comes in! Not only does it implement a new and carefully considered translation of the original text, but it also (optionally) ports over and adapts graphics from the original 1986 Famicom release while retaining the technical improvements from the international version.

The script is really well written and pleasant to read, and the Famicom graphics will make it an interesting change for those who've played the original translation. One aspect of the hack I really love is the spell names! They capture the spirit of the original Japanese names well, being very memorable. I find it way more fun to cast "slumbari" than "sleep", and don't get me started on "hurtmore"... the modern official spell names aren't quite there either.

This is without a doubt the best way to experience DQ1 in English. A lot of passion and energy has gone into these Delocalised projects, and I strongly recommend them based on my experience with this hack alone. The authors are very responsive to feedback as well!

The whole series of "re"-translations (Delocalized exists for every Dragon Quest from 1-4) is underrated and underlooked by every online community that I have visited. People want to fast forward through the game versions that are already fast, I guess. And even after the fact that they speed the game up they're playing the "busybee" card to excuse themselves for wanting to wait 1 minute for a level up instead of 3. But I digress.

I consider these translations to be significantly better than what we officially got. You may be correct in assuming that a localization should be more than a mere translation, but I'm not happy with the accent-heavy, almost meme-worthy versions in the West.

These patches are also fixing stuff that were unnecessarily misinterpreted and obfuscated in the original versions. An example of this is the king being awfully rude when he revived you in Dragon Quest 2, and Cannock's princess calling her brother "slow" making you think that he just travels slowly. Sigh.

My only issue is with naming Loto "Roto" since we all know how the Japanese accent works.

Where to begin? I have so much to say about this patch. Are you like me? Have you been a diehard Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest fan since the days of the NES, and hold a soft spot in your heart after all these years for the original NES versions over the GBC/SFC/DS/iOS remakes? Not a fan of the accents, silly "Ye old days of old" speech, and censorship? Prefer the Japanese lingo over the localized translations of names and places? Like "Puff Puff" in your DQ games?Then this patch is for you! This is basically the game we would have gotten had Nintendo of America not had such strict and stupid censorship policies and took forever to localize the game as well. Original Famicom Sprites are restored. (For those who didn't know the sprites received an overhaul when the game was released in the USA to try and catch up to current graphical standards of that time.) You really can't get more of an authentic Japanese experience but directly translated with superb accuracy than this patch. The spell names have been tweaked as well, but fear not. While they are more aligned with the original Japanese version, you can still figure out what spell does what with ease. Think of it like Final Fantasy's system of (Fire, Fira, & Firaga). Now I realize the sprite changes could potentially be a little off putting to some, especially if you were really used to the original dragon warrior sprites but I ask you to give it a chance. The original sprites have their charm and the creator of this patch improved the hero sprite by enabling it to move in all 4 directions as opposed to always being forward facing like the Japanese version was. Crosses and references to God are restored as well as coffins (coffins only for subsequent games after this one). I really just can't say enough good about this patch and the project to delocalize all the DQ games that Chicken Knife has started. He's doing Rubiss' work.